‘Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain’ Multiplayer Gameplay Revealed

Back at E3 2014, we saw a lengthy demo for Metal Gear Solid 5 that included closer looks at the game’s open world stealth options, the return of the Fulton recovery system, and plenty of cardboard box shenanigans. For a 30-minute demo, the Metal Gear Solid 5 presentation was comprehensive, but even so it still felt like we were barely scratching the surface.

One area that was initially teased in the MGS5: Phantom Pain demo was Mother Base, a central hub where players collect resources, customize their military, and plan future missions. But, with only so much time to work with, Konami couldn’t show off all that Mother Base has to offer, specifically the multiplayer. We knew that each individual Mother Base was not alone, the developers highlighted a friend’s Base off in the distance, but how exactly those installations might connect was, at the time, unclear.

At Gamescom, however, Kojima Productions finally revealed the multiplayer for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, showing how players can invade each other’s Mother Base installations and steal their precious resources. The demo (featured in the video above) also included the same single player portion seen in the E3 demo, only approached from a completely different perspective and with a few unique quirks. The presentation also highlights how the game adapts to player choice, either through changing enemy gear or tweaking guard allocations.

Generally, though, the single player portion of the demo hit most of the same bullet points from E3. Players can recon the land and mark targets, they can maneuver around and distract guards using a number of tools (cardboard box, horse poop, etc.), and passing time is a cinch thanks to the phantom cigar. Basically, Kojima wanted to reinforce that the open world exploration and freedom of Ground Zeroes has been expanded several times over for The Phantom Pain.

Then once players finish a mission and return to Mother Base things get interesting. Yes, they can take stock of all the items they have Fulton-ed throughout their prior mission, but as we now have learned, even though player can claim soldiers, crates, weapons, vehicles, and even sheep as their own that doesn’t mean they are safe.

In fact, that’s the major multiplayer component of Mother Base: sneaking into other player’s installations and stealing their stuff. Or conversely, outfitting your own Mother Base to protect from invaders.

Overall, the Mother Base multiplayer looks to add a new wrinkle to the formula. For the most part, the Metal Gear franchise has relied on story-driven, singular experiences, but Kojima has started to move away from that as of late. Ground Zeroes, for example, only took about 90 minutes to complete the primary mission, but offered plenty of replay value.

That being said, our hope is that the invading/being invaded is purely optional (like Watch Dogs‘ online components), but that’s unclear from the presentation. We wouldn’t want to start gearing up for a new mission only to discover that a random player has stolen all our stuff.

What do you think of the Mother Base multiplayer for MGS 5? Does it look like something you would partake in?

Sounds cool. I imagine there will be restrictions so you can’t just keep raiding the same player over and over, and perhaps a grace period where you’re unraidable for a while after being raided. I do hope it’s “opt in” though: I play Metal Gear for the single player and the story and I don’t want other players sabotaging my attempts to progress in the game.

I also imagine it won’t take long for somebody to figure out the perfect defense and then everybody will adopt it and nobody will be able to raid each other effectively any more.